I want to be a lilikoi, Boy Lilikoi/You grind your claws, you howl, you growl/Unafraid of Hoi Polloi
I've had weird creative cravings lately, weird because of their impatience and willingness to disrupt good flow if not well-fed. I've been forced up and out of my seat to museums several towns over, compelled to change shirts which weren't "writing friendly", thrown out into the world looking for foreign and specific writers, and commanded to eavesdrop on discussions of Art, Music, Literature, and Performance. This is all due to the silly, small, but commanding presence which has enacted a coup upon my heart. On the one hand, it's incredibly inconvenient, and makes me fussy, irritable, emotionally mutable, much more self-indulgent than I ever have allowed myself to be... But, the voice tells me stories, sometimes. And points out things about the world I hadn't seen before - it remakes my vision, my world, daily. And, having such a hold over my heart, the little bastard has day by day opened it up, asking me to show it all the places that make me uncomfortable, the places I am embarrassed about, obsessed by, and letting all the old, rotten wounds breathe, and hurt, and heal again. It's also been reminding me of the things that I want, and need, and believe in.
I can't say that it's not my fault. I invited the thing in, by waking up every morning, and forcing myself to sit down and freewrite in my big college-ruled journal, before food, before work, before shopping and tea, checking e-mail and news and webcomics, saying good morning to Brian, good morning to Heather, starting into the next novel I've been gnawing on, picking up the guitar. And, until I've reached the day's page requirement (earlier this summer, it was three. Lately, I've bumped it up to five, because it felt right), I am not permitted to go to sleep. I can write about grocery shopping, or dreams, or self-conscious nonsense, or the things I am planning to do that day which I will most likely never get around to, just so long as the pages get written. I can't show the journal to anyone, not because I have written anything embarrassing, just that it's not meant for them. It's not even really written for me - I avoid re-reading what I've written unless it's somehow absolutely necessary. It's my own little ritual, and with it, I've conjured up this horrible, increasingly demanding little muse-beast.
And it's gotten to be a bit of an addiction, really. It started as a good habit, but, more and more, I've found that, if I haven't written my five pages by noon, my head fogs up, my body refuses to be satisfied with food or drink or sex, and I get the kind of surly that I'd usually reserve for someone who has pissed on my shoes and then proceeded to ask me out on a date. It's terrible, though, thankfully, I'm not alone -
Paul Auster: "It's an activity I seem to need in order to stay alive. I feel terrible when I'm not doing it. It's not that writing brings me a lot of pleasure -but not doing it is worse." (from an interview in his Collected Prose)
Dan Chaon: “Not to be insensitive, but I’ve known various alcoholics and addicts, and it does take a certain kind of determination and willpower to give yourself over to a drug so completely. There’s a lot of effort expended once you begin to completely trash your life. Sometimes, writing feels like this to me. It’s like going on an all-night bender and then waking up and thinking, ‘You know, I think I’ll do that again,’ and pouring yourself another drink.”
and, while Julia Cameron, (writer of the sometimes embarrassingly gentle, New Agey, kind, and very good Artist's Way) takes a bit of a more positive perspective, she still talks about learning how to be creative in terms usually reserved for recovering junkies.
Writing, for me, has become an act of determined submission.
--
The past few days, I've also been reading voraciously about writers and reviewers of contemporary fiction. It's not something I've really done before, in part because I've found that my tastes rarely run to the contemporary...I find a lot of the poetry and prose people have recommended to me has been smart, well-structured, funny, but, incredibly cold, passionless, and distant. Often, finishing such a piece, all I am left with is the feeling that I have been shown a very beautiful house, impeccably furnished, with good, respectable authors filling the shelves, and then have opened the refrigerator to find a sparkling nothingness, to discover that no one has ever lived there. It's not that I believe that that's all that's out there, but, I haven't read a lot of contemporary work in a long time because of it.
To be honest, I've also been scared off from a lot of writing in the past few years, because if they're challenging, in terms of style or older language or unfamiliar historical context, or if I just don't like someone everyone around me worships, I feel abject terror at the idea of being outed as a stupid and immature writer. (Frankly, at my weakest, I'm terrified of being outed as a stupid and immature person, let alone a writer, and it's a fear that's haunted me through every relationship I've ever had, friendship or otherwise. But, that's for a different post.)
This article, and the magazine it's from, sparked an interest again, and now I've got some books by Lethem, Mansbach, and Phillip Lethem on my floor, waiting to be read, because I ran into some interviews with them, and I related to some of the things they had to say.
Mostly, I'm just trying to track down the voices that sound like Home to me. More and more, the presence's cravings have been about being around other people who are Making Things, making music, making art, making poetry, making love (especially places where people are making love). I need to be around people who are also trying to live with little demons in their hearts, quiet bluebirds, wicked old grandmothers, and all-consuming flames. My family and friends and lover are scattered all over the world, though, and it's hard figuring out where I need to go first, and what I need to do to support myself. I just know that I need to be somewhere that people get me, speak one of my languages, and, if at all possible, where Brian is, too. Because, more than with anyone else, being with him still feels so much like home.
---
I've been wondering if my plan to snag a degree in library science is just another way for me to supplant my desire to write by just resigning myself to a life around writing. It's troubling, but I suspect it's true. I'm not passionate about the work (though I am passionate about libraries), and I don't need the extra grad-school debt it'll land me with... I'm going to keep thinking about it, and try to apply for some really good internships for next summer, maybe at publishing houses, or literary magazines...maybe see if some other writer needs a research assistant... Maybe I'll actually edit and submit some of my stuff somewhere - hey, that's a thought. I'll figure it out. But, I thought I'd share, anyway.
---
I guess I just needed to get some of this down, before it went out of my head, because I wanted to say a small thing about where I was, even if it's vague, and not nearly as potent as it was a few days ago, when I was scribbling all of this out in front of a cafe by the canal, barefooted with a glass of water in one hand, and green tea in the other. I just wanted to get down something, before I'd lost myself entirely in process again, and I couldn't tell you for the life of me how I was doing what I was doing (something that seems to happen to artists more often as they get deeper into their work...a little like old, hardcore Zen Masters, who teach primarily in quixotic koans and a variety of physical abuses). So, that's what's been going on. There was some other stuff, too, but now I'm tired, and would like very much to go out and buy some juice, and then come back, and read, and listen to "Go Do" again, and sleep for a long, long time.
Love,
Love.
a